Hendrickson and Kaminski's Billboard Refrigerator Cars shows several Northern Refrigerator Car Co. cars in the 3600 series. The standard portion of the lettering looks correct, and one of the captions is "NRC leased many refrigerator cars to small Wisconsin canning companies, as shown here,though each of these shippers were assigned only a small number of cars (sometimes, it appears, only one or two cars)." So if it is a real company during that period then it certainly could be a real scheme.

Jim Gates

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Is it a real scheme or just a dream?

Photo: Delivering A 1957 Chevy

End door boxcar:

https://66.media.tumblr.com/c3b25a8a106e913adac4a0061d1acb77/tumblr_n7jd1n0aG81qcdxvpo1_1280.jpg

Bob Chaparro

Hemet, CA

Does anyone make either this car or decals in HO?

Thanks,
Roger Huber

Okay,

I added the Ghost White replacement numeral.  What do you think?

Dave



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Sent from David Bott's desktop pc
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David Bott, modeling the A&Y in '34

Thanks for the update Chad.  Keep us informed when you are ready to release.   I'll be good for an order !

Brent

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Dr. J. Brent Greer

At 01:10 PM 5/27/2019, Dennis Storzek wrote:

<snip> Be aware that in older B&W prints it is not uncommon for areas of great contrast, such as white lettering on a dark car side, to 'swell' as the bright light affects the film emulsion slightly outside of the actual boundaries of the white object. When the negative was printed, this makes the lettering appear bolder than it should be.

...and that contrast flare can make '8' and '6' nearly indistinguishable, as well as 'O' and 'D' or even 'B' and 'E'.

There are some lettering styles that did have rounded serifs, more common today than during the steam era.

I have yet to identify a complete rounded serif freight car lettering set from the steam era.
One can only imagine the greater difficulty in shop fabricating the stencils; with a rounded end needing to be cut at the end of every stroke.
THROW AWAY that 'Arial Rounded MT Bold' !!!

Richard

On Mon, May 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM, Richard Brennan wrote:

More caveats:
 - Even before 'named' trains.. the road name lettering on engines and passenger cars was NOT necessarily the same as that on freight cars.
 - The stencil diagram a historical society has for 9-inch letters probably does NOT scale down correctly to 2, 3 or 4-inch markings.
   Even if the letter outline is the same (or similar) the stencil bridges (technical term for the 'bars' that hold interior portions of the stencil) will not necessarily be scaled proportionately.
 - Car builders did not always follow the Railroad's lettering instructions... often using what was available, rather than what was specified.
 - Car shops usually cut their own stencils... and repaired them as needed, which means individual letters could differ by shop location and date. 
 - Reweigh and other shop data was applied by whatever shop did the work... not necessarily the car owner.  Lettering styles can vary widely...

Very good points, to which I'll add:

Different sizes of prototype lettering usually had different drawings, the reason being that as the lettering got smaller, the proportion between the thick and thin strokes became less, so that the thin strokes didn't appear to disappear in the small lettering. Using one style and just reducing it will usually yield small letters that look anemic, and don't print well.

Be aware that in older B&W prints it is not uncommon for areas of great contrast, such as white lettering on a dark car side, to 'swell' as the bright light affects the film emulsion slightly outside of the actual boundaries of the white object. When the negative was printed, this makes the lettering appear bolder than it should be. This can normally be spotted by comparing multiple photos. It also shows itself in a single image by things that should be perfectly sharp square corners, like the ends of the serifs, taking on a rounded appearance. There are some lettering styles that did have rounded serifs, more common today than during the steam era.

Dennis Storzek